A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF WELL-BEING

The conceptual framework of the system specifies that societal resources are limited by two basic factors: the amount of available human time, and the stock of wealth inherited from the past. Wealth is defined very broadly to cover not only the conventional tangible capital assets familiar to economists, but also intangible human and other capital assets, stocks of organizational capital reflected by networks of social support systems (the family, the neighbourhood), stocks of environmental assets (the sun and air), and stocks of socio-political assets (security, freedom of choice). Human time covers market work, household production, leisure, and biological maintenance. Human time and capital stocks are used within households to produce a variety of tangible and intangible outputs, and these outputs in turn are used to produce a variety of satisfactions (utilities) or to augment stocks of capital, or both. The basic sources of well-being in the system are ultimately of two types: well-being is produced as a consequence of the intrinsic benefits from all activities engaged in by individuals, which is to say that people have preferences over the way they spend their time; secondly, people derive utilities from the existence of various stocks or states of society, and these satisfactions are independent of the way in which time is used. The satisfactions associated with flows of goods are subsumed by satisfactions derived from activities associated with those goods. The system contains a set of linkages among the various parts: inputs of goods and time are used to produce tangible household output, using the familiar notions of household production functions and constrained optimization; tangible household products, which are intermediate in the system, are used in conjunction with human time to produce direct satisfactions or to augment household capital stocks; both household (micro) and societal (macro) capital stocks are linked directly to psychological well-being; household activities are linked directly to flows of satisfactions, termed process benefits in the system; household preferences and values relating to policy variables are linked to public policies of various sorts, and policies modify the constraints and opportunities relevant for household decisions. The system also has dynamic linkages. Modifications of household or public stocks produce impacts on future flows of well-being; satisfactions from activities may adapt to the existence of constraints, hence changes in constraints can modify preferences and subsequently modify activities; and household behavior has a life-cycle dimension which is inherently dynamic.     

An economic theory of altruism based on rankings in a stable social hierarchy

In order to fully understand the interaction between selfish and non-selfish actors, social scientists need rigorous formal models of other-regarding preferences. While the current models clearly present progress relative to the self-interest approach, the evidence also makes it clear that further theoretical progress is warranted. There is ample opportunity for improving our understanding of other-regarding behavior. This paper develops a theory of economic altruism entirely compatible with self-interest utility maximization by rational individuals. Sympathy arises when someone is interested in improving somebody else’s condition, and this will also enhance the utility of the one who acts. Construed in that way, sympathetic behavior is essentially self-interested behavior. A question addressed in this paper is whether a sympathetic population of individuals will exert their income-producing labor differently than a population of egoistic individuals. Two parameters suffice to characterize the altruistic conduct of an individual: a parameter governing the individual’s ranking in a social hierarchy and a parameter determining the sensitivity of an individual’s sympathy for others at different social ranks. The main testable implication of the theory is that in a large population, where each individual has a concave utility function embodying sympathy, the altruistic behavior of any specific individual is determined by his rank in the social hierarchy. A second implication is that in a horizontal social hierarchy, the most altruistic people in the population are those in the middle of it.     

大力发展农村合作组织 提高农村公共物品供给能力

随着农业税的取消,作为农村公共物品主要供给者的乡(镇)、村两级组织的收入大大减少,极大地影响了公共物品供给,严重制约了我国农村经济的发展和农民社会福祉的提高,成为构建社会主义新农村的一大瓶颈。文章认为,在新形势下,应充分认识到农村合作组织对缓解农村公共物品供给不足问题的重要作用,及时调整农村公共事业发展的思路,通过配套政策支持,大力发展农村合作组织,提高农村公共物品供给能力,以适应农村公共事业发展的需要。     

消费者自愿在线反馈行为的效用分析——基于马斯洛人类动机理论的考察

自愿的在线反馈行为是网络消费中的普遍现象，其背后隐藏着一个重要的经济学问题，即公共品的私人自愿供给。为了更深入地研究消费者自愿进行在线反馈的动因，并相应探讨私人自愿提供公共品的原因，本文以马斯洛人类动机理论为基础，建立了自愿在线反馈行为的效用模型，并利用网络问卷数据对模型进行验证。研究结果表明，自愿在线反馈行为是消费者在效用和成本之间理性选择的结果，公共品的私人自愿供给方式具有理性基础。本文拓展了传统效用函数的内涵，深化了对公共品私人自愿供给和马斯洛动机理论的认识，也为网络消费平台的信用体系建设提供了新思路。     

Education and the Public Goods Type of Social Capital: Are the Well Educated Free Riding in the Provision of Public Goods?

In the previous literature, education has been found to promote the individual’s investment in social capital. However, little is known about its effect on the public goods type of social capital as many of the studies have used generalized measures of social capital. Using survey data from Japan with information on participation in neighborhood associations and community activities, we find that individuals with higher education are no more likely than those with compulsory minimum education to invest in the public goods type of social capital. Nor do we find evidence that the more educated free ride on the less educated in the provision of public goods.     

Free‐Riding and the Provision of Public Goods in the Family: A Laboratory Experiment*

We examine the provision of family public goods using experimental economics methods. With sufficient altruism and shared resource arrangements, families can provide the efficient level of family public goods. Becker's Rotten Kid Theorem asserts that transfers from altruistic parents will induce children to maximize family income even if children are not altruistic toward other family members. Consistent with altruism, parents and children contributed more to a public good when in groups with family members than when in groups with strangers. In contrast to the predictions of the Rotten Kid Theorem, however, children's behavior fell short of maximizing family income.     

公共品二元结构对农民素质的消极影响及建议

农民是建设社会主义新农村的主体力量，农民素质的高低最终决定着社会主义新农村建设的成败。目前农民素质相对较低的社会根源是城乡公共品二元结构。我国长期存在的城乡公共品二元结构使农民丧失了提高自身素质的经济能力、积极的社会环境条件和教育条件。改革公共品二元结构，实现城乡公共品供给平等化，是提高农民素质的体制保证。     

ESTIMATING THE GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM BENEFITS OF LARGE CHANGES IN SPATIALLY DELINEATED PUBLIC GOODS*

The purpose of this article is to report a new approach for measuring the general equilibrium willingness to pay for large changes in spatially delineated public goods such as air quality. We estimate the parameters of a locational equilibrium model and compute equilibria for alternative scenarios characterizing the availability of public goods within a system of communities. Welfare measures take into consideration the adjustments of households in equilibrium to nonmarginal changes in public goods. The framework is used to analyze willingness to pay for reductions in ozone concentrations in Southern California between 1990 and 1995.     

EMPIRICAL IMPACT OF PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE ON THE JAPANESE ECONOMY*

We study the impact of public capital investment on individual sectors of the Japanese economy using time‐series data for the period of 1970–1998. We employ a production function approach and also estimate a dynamic VAR/ECM model. We find significant differences in the employment effects, output effects and private investment effects across sectors. Public capital investment has a positive effect on employment in the finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE), manufacturing, construction and utilities sectors; on private investment in the FIRE, agriculture, transportation, trade and services sectors; and on output in the mining, FIRE, trade and manufacturing sectors.     

Competition and Public Service Obligations: Regulatory Rules and Industries Games

The introduction of competition in regulated industries may have positive or negative side-effects on the provision of collective goods or services. The paper shows that these effects are closely related to two associated elements: the industrial strategies developed by utilities and the regulatory environment within which they operate. Regulatory rules and corporate strategies influence the treatment of public service obligations. This raises a major issue regarding the regulation of public utilities. To reduce the drawbacks of the introduction of competition, it is necessary to set regulatory rules that allow the implementation of market configurations enabling public utilities to follow a public service orientation rather than a pure market-based approach.     

Nonlinear Pricing in General Equilibrium Models with Joint Production

This paper considers general equilibrium models of public utilities which produce either public goods or private goods. In the models, cases of increasing returns are not a priori excluded. The products of the public utilities and their costs are allocated to the consumers according to a rule that is dependent on information communicated to the public utilities. We show that if the public utilities follow a nonlinear pricing rule, the equilibrium allocations are always Pareto-optimal. Moreover, the message space is of finite dimensions.
JEL Classification Numbers: D51, D60, H41, H42.     

Emission taxes for genuine altruistic firms

This article develops a theoretical model that explores firms' abatement choices. The main results are: First, in a market comprised of a not sufficiently large number of heterogeneous firms always there exists a subset of firms that are willing to undertake abatement activities, if their marginal altruistic cost of emissions is positive. Second, a low emission tax induces abatement when a firm is egoistic or if its altruistic cost of emissions has a concave structure. In contrast, if the firms’ altruistic cost of emissions has a convex structure, then intermediate emission taxes are required. Third, the effect of firms’ altruistic cost of emissions on the emission tax that induce the socially optimum abatement is also conditional on the genuine altruistic preferences and finally, the social planner has an incentive to impose a Pigouvian emission tax when firms are profit maximizers. Otherwise, a lower tax suffices.     

Capital Accumulation in an Economy with Dynasties and Uncertain Lifetimes

This paper studies how the lack of an annuities market affects savings behavior and intergenerational transfers in a dynastic overlapping generations economy. I find that the answer to this question depends crucially on altruism. On the one hand, if the altruistic bequest motive is operative, then the lack of annuity markets enhances capital accumulation. On the other hand, if the altruistic bequest motive is not operative, the absence of annuity markets can either increase or decrease aggregate savings. I characterize under which conditions capital accumulation is enhanced. I also prove that an overlapping generations economy with altruism and uninsurable lifetime risk faces capital overaccumulation relative to the modified Golden Rule. The efficient allocation corresponding to the modified Golden Rule can be decentralized as a competitive equilibrium by a pay-as-you-go social security system, and this can only be done if individuals are altruistic.     

Public Preferences and Private Choices: Effect of Altruism and Free Riding on Demand for Environmentally Certified Pork

Sales of private goods with affiliated public good attributes have markedly risen in recent years. This fact is difficult to explain within the paradigm of purely self-interested behavior. This paper investigates factors influencing consumer demand for pork products with certifications related to the environment, animal welfare, and antibiotics. Using psychometric scaling techniques, we measure individuals’ degree of altruism and propensity toward free riding. Results of a random parameter logit model applied to choice data obtained from a nationwide survey in the United States indicates that more altruistic individuals are willing to pay more for pork products with public good attributes than less altruistic individuals and free riders. These results indicate that private purchases of goods with public-good attributes are not simply a result of individuals’ perceptions of the ability to mitigate private risks such as food safety, but that individuals are making private choices to affect public outcomes. Results have implications for policy makers weighing the relative costs and benefits of food labeling policies versus bans related to certain livestock production practices.     

S形需求曲线的动态起源-消费者社会相互作用下时尚商品的群体模型

时尚品消费是社会心理的典型现象,其需求变化的特点是跃变而非渐变。本文用人际相互作用下的"社会人"理性构造动态优化模型,来理解S形需求曲线的起源(Becker1991)。时尚市场的特点是开放型的"进入或退出"机制。消费者心态的转变概率取决于社会风潮的吸引和过度拥挤的厌恶之间的竞争制衡。由此得出的S形曲线的不连续性导致需求的跃变。当社会相互影响强度变弱时,S形需求曲线中不稳定的正斜率部分会退化消失,成为近于单调向下的直线。     

Consumption and fiscal policy

This paper uses the life-cycle approach to derive an equilibrium intratemporal efficiency condition which relates the marginal utility of consumption of nondurable goods and services to the marginal utility of consumption of services from durable goods. Given this condition and the assumption that marginal utilities are affected by the level of public spending, a long-run relationship between components of private consumption and public expenditure is then postulated. The application of cointegration analysis to UK data supports the existence and uniqueness of such a long-run relationship, and estimates based on the error correction approach produce results which suggest that (i) a change in public spending has different effects on components of private consumption in the short-run, and (ii) the entire burden of long-run substitution falls on nondurable consumption.     

Public Goods Games,Altruism, and Evolution

I analyze the evolution of altruistic preferences in a population where individuals are matched pairwise to play a one‐shot public goods game. I determine the evolutionarily stable degree of altruism, allowing for assortative matching. The stable degree of altruism is strictly smaller than the degree of assortativity. In particular, if matching is completely random, spite is stable, and a positive degree of assortativity is necessary for pure selfishness to be stable. Furthermore, the stable degree of altruism is increasing in the degree of assortativity, and it depends on the specifics of the public goods game.     

Tiebout with Politics: Capital Tax Competition and Constitutional Choices

This paper examines how capital tax competition affects jurisdiction formation. We describe a non-cooperative locational model of public goods provision choices, where the levels of taxation and the local public good varieties provided within jurisdictions are selected by majority voting, and where equilibrium jurisdictions consist of consumers with similar tastes. We show that interjurisdictional tax competition results in an enlargement of jurisdictional boundaries, and, even in the absence of intrajurisdictional transfers, can raise welfare for all members of a jurisdiction.     

Altruistic, egoistic and biospheric values in willingness to pay (WTP) for wildlife

We attempt to measure general attitudes and ethical beliefs towards preservation, as well as the importance of each of the three considered value orientations (biospheric, egoistic and altruistic) in WTP estimates. In the present study, we apply the GAC scale to a contingent valuation exercise for the recovery of the common murre (Uria aalge) in Galicia (Spain). Up to now, only a few studies in the field of environmental and ecological economics have analyzed value orientations under the Environmental Concern (EC) framework, obtaining mixed results. In the present work, we conclude that ethical aspects affect the individuals decision making process, and that value orientations play an important role in the pro-environmental attitude formation. These value orientations affect willingness to pay (WTP) estimates for environmental goods.     

International Factor Mobility, Government Size and Welfare

An examination of the available data reveals that the size of government varies considerably across time and countries. By making use of a simple general equilibrium model, this paper demonstrates that size of government is affected by the availability of capital and labour within an economy. Specifically, this paper utilises a model of a closed economy that produces one-private and one-public good. Both goods are produced by means of capital and labour. Production functions are subject to constant returns to scale and perfect competition prevails in all markets. The elasticity of substitution between the public and the private good is greater than unity and there is no international factor mobility in the initial equilibrium. The size of government is measured by total spending on the public good as a proportion of the total expenditure on the private and public goods. It is shown that capital (labour) inflow can decrease (increase) the size of government. Capital inflow increases welfare if the private good is relatively capital intensive whereas labour inflow increases welfare if the public good is relatively capital intensive.